Posts Tagged railroad

    The first picture of the tube mill was believed to have been taken late summer/ early fall of 1916 from the area that was formerly Tunnel Field. For the younger generations, it is easy to forget how big the National Tube Company (a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation) was.

    The second picture with a close-up of “the smoke stacks” was only a portion of the tube mill that ran from the railroad tracks by the Second Street overpass to the Ewing Park Bridge. The Ellwood City Works of the National Tube Company later expanded to 127 total acres with 23 acres under a roof. Employment reached its highest point during World War II when 4,000 people were employed.

    I recently got an email from Robert Haben asking if I had any pictures of the tube mill steam switch engine that was used to dump slag behind Loccisano’s market. He believed that the engine ran through the 1940′s and the large cement dump is still standing today.

I went through my pictures and I did find some pictures of the tube mill that I have not published yet. The picture above is part of the slideshow below that has pictures taken between 1914 and 1917 around the tube mill involving railroad tracks. Robert mentioned the 1940′s, so I am not sure if this is the same engine, but it is the only one I have. If you have a picture, we would love to see it.

A number of these pictures I do not know what exactly we are looking at so any feedback you might have would be appreciated. You can leave your comments below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

   The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and was created mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal (which came through Rock Point Park) and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The B&O Rail Road Company became America’s first common carrier when it was chartered on February 28th 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to ensure traffic would not be lost to the aforementioned proposed Chesapeake & Ohio Canal.
The B&O passenger station in Ellwood City off of Fifth Street beside the subway was torn down long ago, however the Baltimore & Ohio Freight Station on the north side of the tracks along Sixth Street was demolished in 1982. That property is now owned by the Ellwood City Forge.

In 1966, the P & LE freight station was converted into a warehouse and offices by Fotia Brothers Sales & Service owners, Sam & Joseph Fotia.
You can leave any memories you may have about the B&O Railroad below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      I have gotten a number of pictures from Betty Fontana and others that feature the Newton family including a number of pictures of the famous Washer Gang. I was curious as to why this one family in particular was so photographed in a period where “snapshots” were not common. Then I received this picture of the Newton Brothers picking up their shipment by train. In the bottom of the picture it is stamped by the photographer H.C. Newton.
      Thanks to H.C. we get to enjoy these pictures of the Newton Brothers Liquor Store a century later.
      The two pictures of the wagon loads of Standard Beer from Kittanning PA and New Castle Beer (among other beverages), are timeless photographs; and they make me feel a little sorry for the horses. The picture of the single wagon is clearly marked License No. 26 and the horse is also tagged with the same license number. I am curious if that is a liquor license or if that license is required to pickup cargo from the P&LE railroad cars?
     The Newton Bro. Liquor Store was owned by Ellwood City Memories contributor Ralph Newton’s grandfather, Thomas J. Newton. I have not been successful in finding whom the brothers were that may have been business partners with Thomas, if there ever were any.
We would enjoy hearing your memories. Please share below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      When the Shortline was being built on the plateau that would become Ellwood City, the railroad company brought in many Italian immigrants to do the heavy labor. To get the railway to the flatter southern part of Hazel Dell, a three hundred foot tunnel would need to be dug through the limestone hillside along the Connoquenessing Creek.
There were between seventy-five and one hundred Italian workmen employed on this railroad tunnel project and they were all housed in an old workshop on the banks of the creek. There is a story floating around that the wife of Merit Green sneaked a look into one of the men’s lunchbox to discover that all he really had was only a piece of bread and a half of a boiled cabbage for his lunch. She had heard that but found it hard to believe.
Having nothing to eat wasn’t the biggest concern of the men, but rather staying alive. There were two factions among these men and they refused to eat together. When circumstances were unavoidable and the two groups were together during break time or any down time, it would almost always result in the two groups fighting each other. There was a true disdain for each other in all aspects of their lives and they did nothing together except the code of silence. If one of the workers were killed during a fight, neither side would claim him. Instead, the typical response was that his body would show up one morning on the town dump along Wampum Avenue and Lawrence County would have to pay for his burial.
In 1892 there was a railroad deadly accident by the tunnel killing the engineer of the train along with six Italian men. The train collided into the back end of a slower moving railroad vehicle and by all accounts appeared to be an accident. However the accident was not quickly discarded as when news of the six Italians workers that lost their lives reached Italy, that country sent their own men to Ellwood City to investigate the accident.
We all have a memory of walking through the tunnel and not being able to see your own hand right in front of your face. But now when you think back to walking through there and the noise you heard that nobody else heard or the sudden flash of cold air that would blow past you. Was it the spirit of one of those workers or was it just your imagination?
Of course, once you’re through the tunnel you still have to cross the railroad trestle. It seems a lot to just go swimming in the creek.

    We would like to thank Rob Wilson for sending us these great pictures of his old service station on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Fourth Street. The small brick building that was torn down to make room for Rob’s Ignition and Taco Bell Express looks a little different then what I remember. As you can see, in 1933 there was no attached garage to the building. In fact there was a massive brick building directly west of the service station. Does anybody remember this building? I do not know if this was a residence, business, or more likely if had something to do with the railroad. Whatever it was, it was large enough to have three fireplaces.
    Even though the Gulf Station did not have a garage then, it does not mean that it was not able to work on cars. If you look closely at the pictures you can see that J.V. “Vic” Rabberman had a car lift, it was just outside the building on the Fourth Street side. At the time of the pictures, “That Good Gulf” only charged ten and a half cents a gallon plus a three cents tax for gas. Not to bad actually as Charley Turner used to cut hair diagonal from the service station at Turners Barber Shop for thirty five cents.
    Some other things we noticed about the pictures were the brick roads. Fourth Street was lined with bricks as you can see but it appears that Lawrence Avenue past Fourth Street was still a dirt road. Across the railroad tracks was a familiar scene but with little differences. The VFW as we know it today was still the Merchants and Manufacturers Club, and across Fourth Street is the long building along the North side of the railroad tracks that burned to the ground around the turn of the century. You may also notice that there is no Uneeda Tire on Lawrence Avenue across from the Gulf Station. Instead there is a row of houses, nice large houses at that too.
If you know the stories behind any of the mystery buildings, or want to share anything about the pictures please leave a comment below or email us by clicking HERE.

    The enormous house at 301 Fountain Avenue was not quite as large as the Stiefel home less than a block away, but was still referred to as the “southern mansion” of Ellwood City. The nickname may have had more to do with the ornamental ironwork on the flat roof of the house and the railing on the front porch roof similar to the large estates in the southern states.
The house was the home of John Gelbach, who was considered the most powerful man in Ellwood City not involved in the tube mills. He was part of the group that controlled First National Bank of Ellwood City and part of the group that purchased the assets of the Pittsburg Company in 1905 after its head man and Ellwood’s founder, Henry Hartman moved to Denver. The assets of the Pittsburg Company at the time included the power company, water company, the short line railroad and the hotel company, all of which Mr. Gelbach guided until 1933. He was very active in the First Presbyterian Church and one of the organizers of the Ellwood City Country Club.
If you would like to share something either about the house, the current owners and renovations they are making, any of the other folks that have owned the house since the Gelbach’s, or about Mr. Gelbach himself, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or email us your memories by CLICKING HERE. Don’t forget to mention the “prize” lamp in the large picture window at Christmas time.
Information for this post was gathered from the book Ellwood City Houses and the People Who Lived in Them by Charles R. Moser available at the Ellwood City Historical Society.

      All along the Ellwood Short-line large crowds gathered to see the funeral train of President William McKinley as it passed through Ellwood City on its way from Washington DC to Ohio.
      The event was well documented with several pictures taken from the viaduct where Second Street crosses the railroad tracks. However this picture was taken of the crowd gathered at the overpass from the grounds of the United Steel Tube Mill. This unique picture shows the wooden bridge as it looked in 1901. There are a number of other things beside the bridge that stands out from this picture including the large locomotive engine on the right and all the tube mill workers sitting upon the eight foot wooden fence on the left. Something else we noticed were the houses in the far right.
      The viaduct over the tracks as it is today was completed towards the end of 1931. At that time, there was an effort to name it “Columbus Bridge” but the motion failed to generate much interest.

      When heading into Rock Point Park, shortly after crossing the railroad tracks there is a large pond from a limestone quarry that operated on the property after the park closed. The water that filled the quarry had a blue tint and was commonly referred to as “Blue Pond”. The story that we got from Leonard Chapman goes that at end of the shift, the men left the stone quarry and everything was fine. In the morning, something was different, the steam shovel was gone. Supposedly some local teenagers that often visited the quarry after hours managed to fire it up and move it. As legend goes, it did not go far and rests at the bottom of Blue Pond.

      When this Ellwood City Ledger picture was taken in 1969, the 700 block of Beaver Avenue was a parking lot. The lot was formerly owned by the P&LE Railroad and offered “all day parking” for the exuberant amount of twenty five cents.  Today the pictured area includes Huntington National Bank drive-through and Diamond Milling.
      In the background you can see two railroad freight cars sitting in the freight yard and Michael’s Discount Company.

      As we mentioned in one of our most popular posts “Ellwood City 100 Years Ago“, Ellwood City owes its birth to the railroad. Ellwood’s founder H.W. Hartman heard the railroad was planning to build the tunnel to bypass the slower railroad line through Hazel Dell and put his plan for an industrial resort town into action.
      The railroad did indeed play a vital role in the growth of Ellwood City and at one time ran four main lines wide through town. There were places it looked like the tracks ran eight wide as there were a number of side tracks owned by the various industries in town. We have heard from a number of people that recall the freight yard from Sixth Street to Blanks Cement that ran six to eight lines wide.
      There are numerous pictures from many different angles of the Union station that was used by both the P&LE Railroad and the B&O Railroad as a passenger station. The beautifully ornate building that sat so prominently beside the subway on Fifth Street is no longer there. The P&LE Freight Station is still standing today, however the B&O Freight Station was torn down in the 80′s. As you can see from the 1908 map of Ellwood City, The B&O freight house and the Union Station are not the only buildings associated with the railroad that are long gone. The first P&L freight and Passenger station used to stand in front of “Mill B” of the tube mill on Sixth Street. Another structure that many people did not even know existed was the engine turn table behind the old B&O Freight Station. Unfortunately, there are no traces of any of these buildings today.
      The trains came through town so often and so fast, a number of people were severely injured or even killed just trying to cross the tracks. Mrs. Kathy Blank shared a memory… “It was during one of those days (when the circus came to town), that I broke away from my Mom and wondered toward the railroad tracks. I can still hear my Mother screaming for me to “stand still”-”stand very still” as she lay on the ground and I was in between two moving trains. I can still feel the wind blowing my hair, as those trains moved. My dad was at work at the “Little Tube mill” and someone must have gotten him ’cause when those trains ended and left town there stood my Dad on one side and Mom on the other crying. That was when I started to cry, never realizing the danger I was in, but crying because my parents were crying. I received many hugs and kisses and a scolding and a BIG smack across, you know where!!!”
      Today there is only one main line running through Ellwood City. A train might come through two times a day with no stops, or anywhere to stop. There are only two side tracks but they rarely, if ever get used. Only shadows remain of what was once there along what is now the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Rail line.

      The Merchants and Manufacturers Club was the original Chamber of Commerence with almost all the area’s businesses belonging to the organization. The M.&M. Clubhouse was located beside the Baltimore & Ohio railroad at 236 4th St (currently home to the Veterans of Foreign Wars post 252).
      In the year 1900, Lyman DeHaven & A.C. Frey held a banquet in Hotel Oliver’s 40 foot by 50 foot dining room with hopes to form a club. The heads of the manufactures and local business’ were all in attendance and the Merchants and Manufacturers Club was born. The Club was so large that in the Ellwood Citizen (printed August 11, 1911) was an advertisement for the Merchants and Manufacturers Outing reporting that “Rock Point will see the largest crowd of happy people ever gathered at that popular resort.”
      A man who attended this event and watched the St. Clair Girls balloon ascension is quoted in the Ellwood City Ledger as saying “a man holding one of the ropes on the balloon was lifted 60 feet before he let loose and broke a leg in his fall. One girl jumped with a parachute while over the park & the other stayed with the balloon which landed a few miles away.” After Rock Point Park closed for good after the 1911 Labor Day Weekend, the 1912 Merchants and Manufacturers outing was held at the Country Club grounds in now what is the borough of Ellport.